Abstract

Abstract. This article argues that a close reading of friendship practices in the
plays of Plautus, in light of the relevant social science and anthropological literature
on friendship, can help us establish the parameters, discourse, and behaviors
associated with Roman friendship. Application of a new analytical framework
for studying such relationships in ancient literature (a “processual model of
friendship interaction”) to the plays of Plautus increases our understanding of
Roman amicitia in that it marks the relationship as a precious and all too rare
social bond, fraught with paradox and ambivalence, and generative of tensions,
anxieties, and asymmetries.